The subject of the invention is also a device with diversion or branching of a pipe flow under pressure with a height-adjustable built-in part and a swirl chamber which tapers from the region of the tangential inlet to the axial outlet of the flow.
Lastly, the subject of the invention is also the application of the device of the method to the incoming flow of inlets for circular tanks, sand classifiers, vortex separators, hydrocyclones or vortex cleaners, centrifugal force separators, hydrocyclone separators as well as distributor structures for incoming water masses.
Such methods and devices are used in the case of both water and waste water, or more specifically in water engineering in domestic supplies as well as in laboratory and process technology.
Rotationally symmetrical spiral movements are advantageous in various applications and methods in hydraulics. Such tasks arise both in water engineering and in domestic water supplies and in laboratory and process technology. In the waste water area, it is mostly a uniform loading of various tanks which is desired, whereas in laboratory and process technology a stable spiral movement in pipe runs can be advantageous or even only trigger a desired effect, such as e.g. a separating process. The disadvantage of previously used swirl chamber shapes (e.g. according to Adami, Drioli, Knapp, Thoma etc.) for such applications lies in a rotational symmetry, which is marked to a greater or lesser extent, by the rotary movement. The reason for this is found in the non-uniform pressure distribution over the swirl-chamber circumference and the inadequate pressure redistribution on the transition from the tangential to the axial pipe. As a result, the vortex core, which is forming and consists of air or liquid, is deflected to one side.
The tangential incoming flow of a conventional swirl chamber with a flat bottom and a cover has the consequence that a spiral vortex is formed in the swirl chamber. The water layers adjacent to the bottom and the cover undergo, as a result of the wall friction, a braking of their speed of rotation and consequently a reduction in their centrifugal force. They therefore head in steeper spirals for the center where they are caught by the central layers and pulled away from the outlet opening again by the suddenly increased centrifugal force. In this manner, centripetal, swirling flows arise in the vicinity of the bottom and the cover and centrifugal, swirling flows in the center between bottom and cover. As a result of the non-uniform pressure match in the region of the tangential mouth, the force effects described above take place distributed non-uniformly over the cross-section, in other words eccentrically. This eccentricity then leads, depending on the throughput, to the asymmetrical rotary movement in the subsequently axial pipe.
It is not unappreciated that a method and a device for generating a spiral fluid flow are known per se (DE-OS 36 30 536). In this case, however, the aim is to superimpose a spiral movement on a straight pipe flow in order that the object remains rotationally symmetrical. Whether the means indicated therein are adequate to bring about rotational symmetry at all is questionable because the inflow is precisely not symmetrical but tangential. The flow, which arrives for example from below according to this laid open specification, enters into a widening, in the broadest sense a "swirl chamber"; a small flow comes from the side as a pulse flow which influences the main flow via a small rotationally symmetrical gap.
The device explained in DE-OS 36 30 536 can thus, as it is described and illustrated, not function. Moreover, a further asymmetrical part would be necessary here for handling the asymmetrical flow. In a device such as that known from DE-OS 36 30 536, the considerations begin, which have led to the invention.